Vows Are Such Easily Broken Things
by CoryphaeusRex
Summary: Some men have to be turned from their vows, and there are always ways to do that. Lu Bu/Diao Chan, another oneshot, milder than the last one but still pretty dark.


**Author's Notes:** What can I say? This pairing inspires me, apparently. I still don't own Dynasty Warriors, obviously, because if I did I would be very rich and probably wouldn't be writing fanfic for y'all. This is another Lu Bu/Diao Chan fic, a bit less adult than the last one. There's a number of hints at rape, and one instance of what could be considered bad language. Heaps and heaps of melodrama, as well, but you'll get used to that with me. This is a leetle AU, I suppose, but since the general consensus here is that Dong Zhuo is trouble, I'm sure you'll accept it no problem. Read, and _please_ review!

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Vows are such easily broken things.

"_Lord Lu Bu..."_

Some men break their vows due to their own fickle hearts, because their love and obedience turn into ambition and greed. Some men break their vows by apathy, by standing aside in inaction as the enemy crashes against the gates. Some men have to be turned from their vows, and there are always ways to do that.

_Her toes kept tangling in the wreckage of her skirt. She was using the wall as a handhold, propelling herself along with her weary arms. Her fingers splayed on the stone, nails finding crevices and anchoring themselves, tearing holes in the tips of her gloves. She didn't care._

Diao Chan doesn't like looking back on what she's done. She took a pure, fierce desire to protect and guard, and she twisted it back on itself until the blade that was meant to be defending delivered the final thrust. It sickens her to her stomach, and she curls up into a small ball of grief and sadness until the feeling passes.

_Her long hair trailed down her back, bloody and bruised. The flowers in her hair were torn, their broken petals hanging down over her eye. She didn't even brush them away. She knew where she was heading._

Ignorance is bliss, right? But she took all that ignorance away, and with her own weakness, her own desire to be adored and held and loved, she crushed any chance of bliss.

_She reached the door frame, almost collapsing onto her knees as weakness and relief overcame her. A thin streak of blood ran down her leg, caressing her inner thigh like an intimate lover. It stained the tops of her stockings red._

Lu Bu hadn't known. He was a good man, he'd never have condoned such a thing, but if she hadn't been _quite_ so helpless, so pathetic and fragile and female, he might have let the egregious sin go. No, he wouldn't have quite done that, there'd have been words, possibly blows exchanged, but there wouldn't have been a death.

"_Lord Lu Bu..." she gasped, her fingers scrabbling at the door, too tired to raise a fist and knock. Her palms bled, she didn't think she could make a fist any more without re-opening the deep wounds. Those, she had made herself._

She's blaming herself, taking it all on her own head, but it's mostly the truth. Lu Bu is only a weapon, he has to be steered, and she had aimed him in the direction of his former master and let him go. Hers was the idea, hers the execution, the only thing she didn't do was hold the blade.

_He opened the door, and she fell through it, caught in his arms awkwardly, somewhere around knee level. He picked her up, as gently as any mother holds a child, and he carried her into his room. She let it happen, because what did she have left to lose? She had one card left, and she would win or lose on the heart of a good man._

Diao Chan's powers of manipulation are second to none. She manipulated Dong Zhuo, but she didn't do it quite well enough, because she allowed herself to be drawn into that seedy little world with no upper hand. She's learned since then to choose her targets, and Lu Bu is the easiest target a woman could aim at.

_He hadn't cleaned her, or rid her of that shameful torn dress. Not because he didn't care, but because he was awkward around helpless women. That was one thing she had relied on Lu Bu for. He wasn't whoring like the other officers, he didn't take advantage. It was almost as though he was shy. He'd taken the flowers from her hair, laid them gently beside her and stroked her hair from her forehead. It was like she was dying, and if she'd had the energy to scream at him, in fear and futile anger and pride, she'd have done so._

"_Diao Chan?" he asked, and she could hear the thunder building behind his concern, the righteous anger gearing up to explode in wrath over some poor sinner's head. "What happened to you?"_

Nothing she hadn't already lived through, and more. She still isn't sure why she chose that night to run, to pick herself up from the floor, walk from the stinking room and into the sweet air, to seek his help. Enough was enough, that's what she tells herself it was, but that doesn't explain why she didn't run weeks before. She worries, deep in her heart, that she was enjoying being a victim.

"_I can't... I can't tell you," she said, biting her lip. To come all this way and not say anything was a foolish woman's errand, but now she'd reached him, and she could see his face looking down at her, all concerned and unsure, she wasn't sure his help was all she wanted. His arms, his voice, his heart; his pure heart with its unyielding love of the challenge and victory. He'd never loved his adoptive father, not in the way he would a natural parent, but their relationship wasn't characterized by hate. All the hatred in their household came from her, like a poisonous mist that corrupted everything it touched._

All the bruises and cuts on her body have long since healed. Her palms are clean and white once more, but there are faint little marks where once her nails dug in _so_ hard, to take the pain from other areas of her body to her hands, where she could hold and manage it herself. It's all about control.

"_Come now, Diao Chan. You haven't come to me in such a state just to keep the perpetrator's name from me," Lu Bu said, and again there's that building storm, a harbinger of terrible things to come._

"_You are going to be unhappy, my Lord," she said, turning her face away from him and folding her arms around herself. Their master's meaty fingers had ripped most of the gold from her top, leaving it barely decent. She didn't yet know if she wanted Lu Bu to see or not._

And now Diao Chan holds the puppet strings. She owns completely this man who is the greatest weapon in history. She can do with him as she chooses, and the control is just what she's always wanted, and yet... she wonders, sometimes, if he feels helpless by it, as she did once, when she was being manipulated and controlled by other means.

"_The only thing that makes me unhappy is seeing you so sad," Lu Bu said. Diao Chan turned her head, and there was a brief moment where their eyes met. Lu Bu looked away first, and to her surprise Diao Chan saw a blush begin to appear on his cheeks. She sighed, and closed her eyes. If this had been a story, a single tear would have fallen from her cheek, but she had no tears left to shed._

"_Lord Dong Zhuo," she whispered, barely audible. "He did this to me."_

Lu Bu had been incandescent. Usually, when the rage of battle overwhelms him and he lays about him with his blades, Diao Chan is inspired. Her heart swells and she wants to cry to the heavens just how proud she is of this mighty man who she loves, loves with all her heart. That time, though, it had been terrible. There had been flames in his eyes and he had shown no mercy when the time came, even though it left them both homeless and alone. They could never be alone when they were together, though, and Lu Bu had been a great comfort to her in those friendless days. He had told her he loved her, wanted to be with her until the end, and would never to anything to make her sad.

But vows are such easily broken things.


End file.
